9-2-13. Southern Lycia, Turkey
After a morning visit to Ucagiz, a little seaside village on the site of ancient Temioussa, I decided to devote the rest of the day to two of southern Lycia’s most obscure sites: the ancient city of Apollonia, and the Byzantine castle of Dereagzi. Beginning with the former, I parked along a narrow road about a mile from a small village – where I consulted with a gaggle of local children – and walked another mile and a half through a brown and scrubby landscape to the hill that bears the ruins of Apollonia. Though a very minor city under the Romans, Apollonia seems to have been a fairly important Lycian center, and later became the site of a considerable Byzantine fortress-town. This long history is reflected in the often confused nature of the ruins, where Lycian, Roman, and Byzantine masonry are often juxtaposed.
I came first to the necropolis, which was dominated by Lycian-style sarcophagi and a few fallen pillar tombs. Tombs were scattered widely over the slope beneath the city’s ruined walls, emerging singly or in clusters from fields of dry grass and clusters of scrub.
Having explored the necropolis, I clambered over the ruins of two Byzantine circuit walls to see the citadel. Though heavily overgrown, this area afforded excellent views of the city and surrounding countryside. The Mediterranean shone to the south through a gap in the hills, as stray cumulus clouds draped their shadows over tan hills and rustling brush.
The well-preserved ruins of a Byzantine church occupied a terrace just below the citadel. I ate my lunch there, sitting on a column drum in the shade of a vaulted aisle. The rest of the ruins were harder to identify, if no less evocative. I was particularly intrigued by two buildings I passed on the way back to my car, both apparently temples, but not well-preserved enough to suggest their use or date.
It was now early afternoon, and I faced the choice of going back to Kas or attempting my most obscure excursion yet. Opting for the latter, I set out for the remote Byzantine fortress of Dereagzi, located near the modern hamlet of Kemerler. I drove for a half-hour though a rugged landscape, arriving finally in a wide mountain valley dotted with villages.
The site was unsigned. My directions, copied from a guidebook, instructed me to “turn right onto a gravel road just past Kemerler.” Since there were easily a half-dozen gravel roads in the two kilometers past Kemerler, all leading in the same direction, this was less than helpful advice. I drove back and forth for a few minutes, looking for someone I could ask for directions. I turned at the first sign of life, a roadside teahouse crowded with men playing backgammon. The instant I pulled up, every game stopped, and thirty pairs of eyes turned to look at me. I forced myself to walk forward to a man I took for the owner, and asked, voice loud in the sudden silence, whether “Dereagzi kale yakin mi”? He responded with a shrug, and asked one of the men at the table. Assuming I meant the nearby city of Kale (which just means “castle”), a lively discussion broke out over just how far away Kale was, and how I should get there. None of them had ever heard of Dereagzi. I thanked the peanut gallery, and went away discouraged. As I began to drive back towards Kas, I noticed a cleft in the mountains to my left. Turning impulsively down the next road, I approached the pass – and there, sure enough, was my fortress, perched on a ridge three hundred feet above the plain. As I drew closer, I saw, to my surprise, that several Lycian rock tombs carved into the walls of the pass. I pulled off on the nearest shoulder and began to explore. The mountain road I had followed – recently paved, which had led me to ignore it the first time – hugged the course of a boulder-filled stream. To the east, red-gray cliffs, a hundred feet high and more, reared up on both sides of the stream; to the west, at the head of the pass, shone the tan fields of the valley.
As I walked along the road, I noticed that an ancient track, complete with steps, was carved into the cliff on the opposite stream, presumably to allow access to the tombs above. Further investigation was delayed, however, by my spotting what appeared to be the ruins of a large church a kilometer down the valley. I went out for a look; and there, ringed by plastic greenhouses filled with tomato plants, found a very substantial building.
Though the main roof had collapsed, several of the subordinate domes were still intact, rising up to forty feet above the rubble-strewn pavement. The nave was ringed by octagonal annexes, perhaps chapels and a baptistery. I am no expert in ecclesiastical architecture; but I cannot imagine that a building of this size and design to be anything but a Byzantine church. Conceivably, it could be somewhat more recent; but I do not think that a Christian community of any size or wealth has existed here since the middle ages.
Satisfied with my detour, I returned to the gorge and its Lycian tombs. A half-hour of very stiff climbing brought me before the most impressive complex, two superimposed house-tombs missing only their doors. Fatigue and common sense, however, barred me from going any higher. The same factors prevented me from ascending to the Byzantine fortress; it was now nearly sunset, and I had no wish to drive that mountain road in the dark.